The Borderlands Trilogy
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
Summary: Three stories set more than a decade after 'Endgame.' Admiral Kathryn Janeway has a fateful encounter with Chakotay, now a colonist and freighter captain, in the far reaches of the Federation. Surely it's too late for anything more than regrets? Yes, JC.
1. Encounter in the Borderlands

TITLE: Encounter in the Borderlands (The Borderlands Trilogy #1)  
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
PART: 1/3  
CODES: J/C  
RATING: G  
DISCLAIMERS: Paramount owns the characters, the situations, and any other aspects of _Star Trek: Voyager_ with real cash value. And if money is what you love, that is what you will receive…  
SUMMARY: Sixteen years after _Voyager_'s return to the AQ, Janeway encounters her former first officer. She's surprised to realize how much he's changed – and how much she hasn't.  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It looks as if, after all these years (and having gotten away from the pairing), I still had one more J/C story left in me. This story, as well as its sequel, "Return to the Borderlands," were written back in 1999, and have been slightly revised to bring them into line with series continuity. Story #3, "A Woman of the Borderlands," is brand-spankin'-new, and provides a long-needed conclusion to this storyline.

**Encounter in the Borderlands  
**by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring

"This is the Borderlands Merchant Ship _Guyasuta_. We have encountered an asteroid storm and taken heavy damage. We are facing possible life-support failure. Requesting assistance from any vessel within range. Repeat: this is the Borderlands Merchant Ship _Guyasuta_..." and the call repeated itself.

On the bridge of the U.S.S. _Hastings_, Admiral Kathryn Janeway jerked her chin up. The voice, that voice was so familiar...

"Hail the _Guyasuta_," Captain McMasters said. "Tell them we've received their distress call and are responding. We should reach them in — estimated time of arrival, Mister Avrial?"

"Six hours, forty-three minutes at current rate of speed," the Andorian answered.

"They may not have six hours and forty-three minutes, Mister Avrial," the captain said gravely. "Can you give me Warp Five?"

"With pleasure, ma'am. That will get us there in — thirty-five minutes."

"Much better. Do it."

"Chakotay," Janeway said, startled.

"Ma'am?" McMasters asked.

"That's who's making that distress call. Lieutenant Trapletti, put me through to the _Guyasuta_."

"Yes, ma'am." Obviously mystified, the communications officer made the connections.

Her heart beating a little more quickly, Janeway hailed the merchant ship in tones she hoped did not betray her anticipation. "_Guyasuta_, this is Admiral Kathryn Janeway aboard the U.S.S. _Hastings_. Captain Chakotay," and she used the title with certainty, for surely her former first officer would be the master of this vessel, "please respond."

The comm unit crackled to renewed life, though no image took shape on the viewscreen. "Kathryn Janeway?" The surprise and delight in Chakotay's voice were evident. "Admiral Kathryn Janeway? What the hell are you doing way out here, Admiral?"

"Well, I thought I was here for an inspection tour of the borderlands starbases. But it looks like I'm coming to your rescue instead." She couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"Wouldn't be the first time, would it?" She could almost hear his answering smile. "Marja," and this was obviously an aside, "can you give me visual?"

"Working on it, sir," said a young-sounding voice, slightly distorted with static. The viewscreen flickered, and there he was: Chakotay, as she hadn't seen him in — God, had it been almost thirteen years now? He'd changed, his once raven-black hair now streaked with gray and gathered into a long tail at the nape of his neck, the crow's-feet about his eyes deeper and more pronounced, his round face a little hollower, a little craggier. Though she knew he had not been a Starfleet officer in a long time, it still seemed very strange to see him out of uniform; he was dressed almost as she remembered him from their long-ago first meeting, in dark-striped shirt and long, leatherlike vest. More surprising even than that, her formerly dapper and clean-shaven first officer had — it would have been generous to call it a "beard" — thick black-and-gray stubble covering the lower half of his face.

His smile, though, was no different than it had ever been: brilliant, all-encompassing, a simple movement of lips and facial muscles lighting up his whole countenance and radiating warmth to everyone in visual range. Janeway's own smile widened in response.

Behind Chakotay, his small bridge was neat, organized chaos, with a handful of crewmembers working busily at an assortment of stations. All had slim straight bodies, most had dark, dark hair, and the few faces Janeway could see looked unlined and extremely young.

"It's good to see you again," Chakotay was saying warmly. "You look great."

Few people outside of Kathryn's own family would have addressed her so personally, and she felt a blush threaten to erupt. To forestall it, she teased, "I bet you say that to all the admirals who save your neck."

"Of course," he answered, pulling a solemn face. "Admiral Necheyev almost turned around and left."

Necheyev's lack of either humor or patience were almost legendary. Janeway shook her head, lips quirking. "So what seems to be the problem, Chakotay?"

Still mock-solemn, he said, "Well, I _seem_ to have lost control of my sensors for about an hour, and we _seem_ to have been overtaken by an asteroid swarm." The seriousness took on a real tone. "My hull's been compromised in a few places, and an energy junction was holed. We're having trouble maintaining power to life support, and my engineer says we won't have the energy to keep our structural force fields up indefinitely. You timed your appearance very well, Admiral."

"Glad I could help. Tell your people that, if they can hold things together for half-an-hour, the cavalry is on its way over the hill."

Chakotay snorted, shaking his head. "You forget I might not think of that as a good thing," he said wryly.

After a moment, and a mental flashback to one of Tom Paris's precious 20th-century holofilm programs — this one focusing on the 20th century's view of the past rather than of the future — Janeway remembered that, in the films at least, the United States Cavalry had generally arrived on the scene to fight "Injuns," an old pejorative meaning Indians, or rather, Native Americans. Chakotay's people. Shaking her head with an embarrassed little smile, she had to agree with her former first officer's assessment.

She still remembered the last time she had seen him, some thirteen years ago. Chakotay had been a Starfleet officer then, assigned as an instructor at Starfleet Academy.

* * *

When the Borg junction had brought _Voyager_ back to the Alpha Quadrant, about two years previously, the rejoicing over their return had been great, both in Starfleet and out. Starfleet's still-recent victory in the Dominion War had been a costly one, resulting in the loss of hundreds of ships and many thousands of personnel. One ship's, any ship's, survival was something to celebrate.

In the first flush of jubilation, Janeway could have written her own ticket, claimed any position in the Admiralty that wasn't already occupied by a Dominion War hero. She had settled for a post in the Sciences department, one for which she would have been qualified even under ordinary circumstances. Her more extravagant demands were aimed at ensuring the welfare of her crew, particularly those on whom Starfleet might normally have felt less inclined to bestow its largesse: people like Seven of Nine, or Tom Paris. Or, of course, the Maquis.

Seven's value in Research and Development was as plain as the implants on her face. Though Starfleet could never accept her as an officer because of the security risk they felt her past represented, they made no obstacle to her becoming an employee of one of the civilian engineering firms with whom they contracted. As for Paris, Janeway never knew what offer he received, only that he refused it. After making his peace with his father — time and loss having mellowed the older Paris enough to make that possible — Tom took off for a colony world. And the Maquis...

None were imprisoned. Janeway and a small army of very expensive attorneys saw to that, pleading that the service the former terrorists (or freedom fighters, depending on one's politics) had rendered to _Voyager_ more than proved their rehabilitation. The small handful of Bajorans in Chakotay's former crew were repatriated to their homeworld; after recent events, Bajor was, if not eager, then certainly willing, to take in anyone who had fought the Cardassians. A few others from Federation worlds were likewise restored to their birthplaces, which welcomed them with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

But most of the ex-Maquis had come from worlds in the Demilitarized Zone, worlds which had been heavily damaged, or environmentally compromised, or outright destroyed, by Cardassian bloodlust and Jem'Hadar firepower in the earliest stage of the Dominion War. Most of them had nowhere to go.

With perceptible reluctance, Starfleet tendered employment offers to Chakotay and to B'Elanna Torres, _Voyager_'s only Maquis officers with Starfleet Academy training. Chakotay accepted his offer with apparent pleasure; B'Elanna, of course, went with Tom and their daughter. For the other Maquis, they offered transport to whatever available colony world, in the former DMZ or elsewhere, that would take them. Those few who could, returned to their homes in the DMZ; the rest tended to pick colony worlds as far from the Cardassian border — and from Earth — as possible. She heard from some of them occasionally, when transmission conditions permitted.

In the three years since their return to Alpha, Chakotay was one of the few of her former officers whom she actually saw on a regular basis. Since he worked within what he considered running distance of her office (she considered it aircar distance herself, but he loved to run), he thought nothing of showing up in her doorway of an evening, once or twice a month, just as she was closing up shop. "Busy tonight?" he'd ask casually. If the answer was "yes," he'd keep on jogging. If the answer was "no," he'd invite her to join him for dinner, usually at some little restaurant or another he claimed to have just discovered. In his company, she had become acquainted (or re-acquainted) with a wide variety of cuisines, from Louisiana Cajun, to Vulcan, and once, even to Klingon. Then, over coffee or tea or pejuta, they discussed recent events: who had heard from whom, and who was doing what, and what were the newest developments in her work, or in his. Then she'd drop him off at his bachelor flat, and not see him again until the next time he showed up on her doorstep, asking, "busy tonight?"

He never called ahead of time. Perhaps she should have been alerted the afternoon he did.

"_Chakotay," she said, with surprise and some pleasure, seeing his image form on her desk monitor's screen._

"_Kathryn," he said. He seemed tired, perhaps a little ill, dark eyes shadowed and cheeks hollower than usual. Tiny lines she had never noticed before creased the skin around eyes and mouth. "Are you busy tonight?" His voice was hoarse._

"_Are you all right?" she asked involuntarily, the question jerked out of her by the evident changes in him._

"_Fine," he said quietly, not managing his usual smile. "Are you busy tonight? We need — I need to talk to you."_

"_All right," she said, mystified._

"_Rossi's?" The nearby Italian restaurant was a mutual favorite._

"_All right. Eighteen-thirty?"_

"_Fine." With uncharacteristic abruptness, he signed off._

_Disturbed by his aspect and his tone, she found it difficult to concentrate on her reports. Finishing up later than usual, she discovered she had no time to stop at her own apartment or change out of uniform, and barely time to make it to the restaurant._

_He was there when she arrived, sitting at a small table already laid out with salads and drinks. Evidently he had taken the liberty of ordering for both — well, he knew well enough by now what she liked. From the looks of his own food and drink, though, he had barely touched either. Instead, he was looking off in the distance, at what she could not tell._

_When his eyes came to her, he said softly, "Kathryn." He managed the smile that time, though there was a quality to it she could not quite interpret, something wistful and a little sad._

"_Chakotay." She felt a little strain in the smile that formed on her own lips. "Are you all right?" she asked again, taking her seat, reaching over to touch one big hand where it rested on the snowy tablecloth._

_He didn't move his hand away, but he didn't respond to the gesture in any other way, either. "Fine," he echoed his earlier response to her query, his expression turning a little guarded._

"_You said you needed to talk to me."_

"_Yes." He averted his face for a moment, then brought his head back up to look directly into her eyes. "I'm leaving Starfleet, Kathryn."_

_She felt the breath burst out of her, as if knocked from her by a body blow in one of the boxing programs he was so fond of. "What?"_

"_I'm leaving Starfleet," he repeated levelly. "I'm resigning my commission."_

"_What?" she said again, stupidly, certain that she must have heard him wrong. Chakotay loved Starfleet as few who had served it all their lives loved it. With the end of the Dominion War, the politics that had separated him from the organization had been resolved, for better or worse. She had even managed to secure him the teaching position he'd said he wanted, so long ago. How could he — why would he — The questions passed her lips in a gasp. "How? _Why_?"_

"_It's not home any more, Kathryn." His look was steady, but there was something ineffably sad in the dark eyes that met hers. "It's not what I thought it was, once. Maybe it never was."_

_"I don't understand," she said, dimly afraid that she did, more afraid that she wouldn't be able to counter his reasons, whatever they were. How had she missed this change of heart?_

_He looked away again, his hand describing a circle in the air, then closing as if it were trying to grasp the right words. Finally, he said, "The Starfleet I wanted to join, back when I was a boy, was...freedom. Exploration. Progress." He snorted a little, humorlessly. "Everything I thought my homeworld wasn't." His hand tightened further in what looked like frustration, taking on the appearance of a fist. "And what Starfleet is now, is protocol, and backbiting, and politics."_

"_Well, but...you're on Earth now." She understood something of that particular aggravation, having spent many days dealing with deskbound admirals jealous of their privileges and eager to exercise their petty tyrannies. "Of course it's all politics here. Maybe what you need is to get back out in the field, Chakotay," she said in what she hoped was an encouraging voice. He couldn't leave Starfleet. He couldn't leave..."It would be different if you were on a —"_

"_I've tried to transfer," he said, an edge to his voice. "I've been refused. Twice." That took the wind out of her sails, and she simply looked at him, in disbelief. He snorted again, and looked back at her, the grief she'd seen earlier mingling with something cynical and old that she had never before seen in his countenance. "I made an appointment with Admiral Marotta in Personnel, and asked him why. He told me —" Chakotay's lips compressed into a line. "He told me I should be glad I was in Starfleet and not in jail, because if it were up to him I wouldn't have had the option. And he said he wouldn't force any line officer to serve beside a traitor."_

_Kathryn's jaw dropped. When she'd recovered from the astonishment and outrage sufficiently to find words, she said sharply, "Go over his head! He's only one —"_

"_No, Kathryn," Chakotay answered with quiet finality. "He's not the only one who feels that way. Have you read what the latest history texts say about the Maquis?"_

"_No, I..." She was at a loss to respond, and didn't think it mattered anyway; he was all-too-obviously not going to be dissuaded from his intent to leave. Defeated, she murmured, "Where will you go? What will you do?"_

"_I don't have anything to hold me on Earth." He searched her face, as if he were looking for something. Evidently he didn't find it, for he continued: "B'Elanna's said I could stay with her and Tom for a while."_

_He had told B'Elanna before he had told _her

_Then Kathryn realized just how long it had been since he'd mentioned having a personal conversation with _anyone_ other than her. In all their time on Earth, she could not recall his ever mentioning any friends, other than their few former shipmates who still remained on-planet._

"_I still have most of my back pay from _Voyager_," he was going on, unaware of her internal commentary. "Maybe I'll make a down payment on a ship. B'Elanna says they need ships and pilots out in the borderlands. Mostly for supply runs, I suppose."_

_The region called "the borderlands" was near the galaxy's rim, so far from the Federation's core that Starfleet barely patrolled it. Something thickened in Kathryn's throat at the thought of his taking up residence in that distant place, and she almost said, impulsively, "Stay." But what could she do, what could she give him, that would be enough to hold him here in the face of everything else?_

_Instead, she said, "Don't you go getting involved with some new version of the Maquis." Though she tried to make a joke of it, the words fell flat._

_The corners of his lips quirked upward then, in a smile that never reached his eyes. "I'll try to stay out of trouble."_

* * *

True to Janeway's word, the cavalry "came over the hill" in time to assist a certain Native American and his crew. When next the admiral spoke to her former first officer, it was to request permission for a repair team to board the _Guyasuta_.

"I think that can be allowed," Chakotay said gravely, exactly as if there had been some chance he'd refuse the help he'd sought. (But then, as she recalled, he'd always had a strange sense of humor.) "And will you be joining them, Admiral?"

"I didn't think merchant ships submitted to Starfleet inspections," she answered with a smile.

"Inspections, no," he said. "Visits, yes. Some of my crew would love to meet you, Admiral."

"Then I'd love to come aboard, Captain."

"We'll be looking forward to it."

Janeway returned to her quarters just long enough to pack a shoulder bag, before reporting to the transporter room with the repair team. If they were a little surprised at having such august company, they were well-trained enough not to show it.

Chakotay met them in _Guyasuta_'s transporter room, accompanied by a young member of his crew who looked somehow, improbably, familiar. The former commander greeted Janeway with a broad smile and a handshake that reminded her of the strength he'd usually kept well-hidden. (He was so big, close up. How had she forgotten that?)

"And this," he was saying, gesturing to the slim, dark-haired girl beside him, "is my engineer. Admiral, you remember Miral?"

The name struck a familiar chord, and of a sudden Janeway made the connection. "You're Miral Paris!" she said in surprise. The last time Janeway had seen her in person, this young woman had been a baby, but she had seen many holos and 2-D flat photos of Miral and her siblings since then, courtesy of Admiral Owen Paris. Wide brown eyes, high cheekbones and faint forehead ridges marked the girl as her mother's daughter, but her height was her father's; she was long-legged and nearly as tall as Chakotay.

The girl grinned at Janeway with a brash cheeriness that showed she had inherited more than height from Tom Paris. "Admiral Janeway, I'm so glad to meet you," she said warmly, in a strong alto startlingly like B'Elanna's. "Mom and Dad talk about you all the time."

"Your grandfather talks about you all the time, too," Janeway answered, recovering from her surprise. "He said you were studying engineering. But you're young to be a working engineer, aren't you? If I recall, you're only sixteen."

"That's right," Miral said cheerfully. "But I've been working with engines since I was a little girl."

"We don't have a lot of formal education on Metzlan," Chakotay put in. "Most of our young people learn their professions as apprentices. Miral qualified as a journeywoman just after her last birthday, and B'Elanna says she's one of the best she's ever trained."

"I'm sure she is," Janeway answered gravely, causing the girl's grin to widen further.

"Miral?" Chakotay prompted gently.

With obvious reluctance, the girl turned away from Janeway, to the waiting repair crew. Gathering them up with professionalism beyond her years, she led them from the transporter room. "Let me show you where we're having trouble..."

Janeway looked after them, reminded with a sudden pang of Miral's mother making assignments to her own Engineering staff, so many years ago. "It looks as if she shows a lot of promise," she said, to cover the sentiment. "Will she get any formal training?"

"Probably," Chakotay answered, also looking after the young girl, something almost paternally proud in his expression. "She really is one of the best and the brightest. After we make a few more trips, Tom and B'Elanna will probably petition the Colonial Council to send her away to school, and I'll testify on her behalf. I think they'll send her." He made an after-you gesture toward the door. "Would you like the cook's tour?"

"Certainly." She preceded him through the exit, at his direction turning left down a small length of corridor. "So your colony pays for her education?"

"If she agrees to stay on Metzlan for the first decade after she graduates."

That seemed an unnecessary shackle on a bright young woman. "You know her grandfather would be delighted to send her to school."

"We try to take care of our own," Chakotay answered quietly.

"Perhaps she could apply to the Academy."

Chakotay stiffened. "I'm sure she could."

Janeway wasn't sure precisely what she'd said to offend him, but something in his tone, in his posture, recalled an early argument she'd had with him, about B'Elanna Torres. She could almost hear his impassioned words: _"She's the best engineer I've ever known! She could_ teach _at the Academy!"_

She shook her head to clear it of the memory, saw her former first officer shaking his head as well. "Shall we start with the bridge?" he asked, in a more normal voice.

"Let's," she said, relieved, and they took the turbolift to the command center.

The rest of the tour proceeded without incident. _Guyasuta_ proved to be an older vessel, though obviously carefully maintained; Janeway wondered if it was the same ship Chakotay had spoken of wanting to buy back when he'd first decided to move to the colonies. It was small by starship standards, and about mid-sized for a civilian freighter, with most of its interior devoted to capacious cargo holds, filled at the moment with an odd mix of medical supplies, electronics, and farm equipment. Including Chakotay himself, the crew numbered only fourteen, most of them looking no older than Miral. Janeway shook hands with all of them, including Miral's brother Miguel, an apprentice pilot, and as much a compact copy of their father as Miral was an elongated version of their mother.

The tour concluded in the captain's cabin, a tiny room that would have fit within the refresher of Janeway's quarters on the _Hastings_. The only pieces of furniture were a narrow bed, a desk just big enough to bear a monitor and control board, a small nightstand, and a wall-mounted counter with a couple of chairs. It was to these last that he led her, popping open a drawer beneath the counter to reveal a small cache of cookies that looked homemade. "Still a cook, I see," she remarked.

"Still like to eat," he returned cheerfully. "Help yourself. Let me see what I can offer you to drink."

She smiled. "I brought my own." Setting her shoulder bag up on the counter, she undid the catches and unloaded the contents: a large, thermally-insulated flask of dark Columbian coffee, flavored with cream and sugar, just as he liked it.

He sniffed deeply as she opened the flask, and a slow smile shaped on his own face. "Mmm. You always did know where to get good coffee."

"Rank hath its privileges." She pulled a couple of mugs out of the bag and filled them with the fragrant beverage. "Enjoy." Passing one to him, she raised the other to her own lips, and they drank in a companionable silence that felt surprisingly like old times. She sampled a cookie, found it delicately sweet and delicious. "Mmm. You haven't lost your touch."

"Thanks."

She took another cookie. "So is this your private stash, or do you share it with your crew?"

"Sometimes." He popped another cookie into his own mouth. "They're good kids."

"Kids' being the operative word." She nibbled at her treat. "Is it just me, or are they really all about sixteen years old?"

"Pretty much." He held up a hand — she guessed, to forestall the objections he anticipated. "They're trainees. Mostly journeymen, a few apprentices."

"No —" she tried to remember the rank progression for such systems — "master craftsmen?"

"Aboard? Only me." He shrugged. "Technical expertise is at a premium on Metzlan, so those of us who have technical educations and field experience end up taking on a lot of trainees. Mostly it works out pretty well."

"Mmm hmm," she said noncommittally, thinking privately that it hadn't worked very well for him today. If _Hastings_ hadn't picked up his distress signal...

"And of course," he added, "the master craftspeople, like B'Elanna, supervise the critical maintenance when I take _Guyasuta_ home."

That was somewhat reassuring. "So you see a lot of B'Elanna?"

"Yeah." He took another swallow of his coffee, a blissful expression momentarily stealing into his eyes. "After all, I _am_ part of Paris Shipping."

Janeway's jaw dropped, and her coffee mug was suspended in mid-air for a good fifteen seconds. "You work for _Tom_?"

"I work _with_ Tom," he corrected, punctuating the words with another swallow of coffee. "I'm an investor. When I first came out here, he was trying to get the business off the ground, but he was short on capital and pilots. I was in a position to help with both, so I did. And here I am."

"And here you are," she echoed. Tom must be short of pilots even now, she thought, if his partner was still doing field work — especially given Chakotay's skill at administration.

"One of these days I'll have my replacement trained," he added, as if he'd heard her thoughts. "Then I'd like to spend a little more time planetside."

"Spacesick?" she asked lightly.

"Homesick," he rejoined. "I miss my daughter."

Time stopped.

She knew she was staring at him, but couldn't help it. Of course, she had been foolish to think that the beard, the clothes, his job, were all that had changed about him... He looked steadily back. "Your daughter?" she said, at last.

"Lanaya." He got up from his chair, took the few steps to his nightstand, and retrieved a framed 2-D flat photo from its perch. Returning, he handed the picture to her.

A pretty young girl looked back at her with Chakotay's chocolate eyes and infectious smile. She was six or seven, no more, small and slim, with long black hair braided down her back and a soft cloth doll clutched in her little hands. "She's beautiful," Janeway said, which was no more than the truth. "Is she with...your wife now?" The words felt strange in Janeway's mouth, but she knew that her former first officer was not the type to father a child on a woman he didn't love enough to marry. _His wife...a woman he loved..._

"She's with Tom and B'Elanna," he said quietly. "Her mother, my wife, is dead."

"My God," she said, shocked out of her discomfiture. "How?"

He looked away, but not before she caught the flash of pain in the brown eyes his daughter had inherited. "Childbirth."

"But no one dies in —" _No one dies in childbirth any more._

"We don't exactly have state-of-the-art medical care here," he said, his voice low. "She just — something went wrong. Nakeema lost too much blood. Tom and the midwife did everything they could, but..." He was still not looking at her, but Janeway did not need to see his eyes to see the frisson of tension that ran through his body. "She wanted a dozen babies. Nakeema's tribe, she said. We used to joke about it."

After a moment, he straightened his shoulders and returned his gaze to her. His eyes were dry, but pain, like a distant shadow, still lurked in their depths. "Anyway, now it's just the two of us."

At a loss, Janeway looked at Lanaya's picture again, seeing this time the traits the girl must have inherited from the unknown mother: the high cheekbones, the delicate bone structure, the fine eyebrows. "She's beautiful," she said again, hearing the hollowness in her own voice. What must it be like for him, to look at this girl's face and see the reminders of the woman he had...loved...the woman he had lost?

"Yes, she is." At the odd note in Chakotay's voice Janeway looked back up at him, to see that he too was gazing at the picture of his daughter, tender pride in his expression despite the lingering trace of grief. He reached out, touched the image with a fingertip, and a tiny smile lifted the corners of his full lips.

It occurred to her suddenly that Chakotay was grayer than men of around sixty usually were, back in the Federation, and much grayer than she would have expected from his appearance when she had known him not much more than a decade before. And was that a trace stiffness in the movement of his hand? From a long-ago crisis on _Voyager_, she seemed to recall learning that age-related arthritis problems were common to his line.

In their Tuesday-afternoon lunches, Owen Paris had expressed pride in his son and in Tom's growing business, yet, in view of the Paris family predisposition to heart problems, he had also been concerned that Tom should be so far away from "civilization."

_We don't exactly have state-of-the-art medical care here..._Chakotay had said.

_How can he do it?_ she thought, with a little surge of fear. _How can he take this kind of chance with his own health, his own mortality?_ It wasn't as if, after his Nakeema's death, he didn't know the risks.

As if in answer, she heard the words he had said, so long ago: I_ don't have anything to hold me on Earth._ Here in the borderlands, he had a home, and a place, and a child, and he had known what it was to be loved.

If on Earth, he had known what it was, to be —? Could things have been different for him?

For her? _What is there for me, on Earth?_ Tuesday lunch with Admiral Paris, Sunday evenings with her nieces, afternoons of paperwork and nights of dull diplomatic receptions and Admiralty dinners. Not much, not enough...

But she could not look on Chakotay, on this stranger with his beard and his long hair and his civilian clothes, and even think of the might-have-beens. He was too changed, and she...she was too much the same, too much still "Admiral-formerly-Captain Janeway," with her short, efficient hair and her neat uniform and her Starfleet protocols. Surely it was far too late now, to think of bridges between their disparate worlds. _Too late..._

She realized that Chakotay was looking at her, an all-too-familiar concern on that unfamiliar face. "Kathryn?" he asked gently.

The colonist, the widower, the aging man was worried about _her_! Shaking her head to clear it, she said softly, "I'm fine. I'm just — I'm sorry about your wife." _Sorry about a lot of things._

"Thanks." He looked as if he wanted to say more, but the intercom on his wall whistled. Walking over to it, he touched a button and the channel opened. "Yes?"

"Chakotay, we're about finished down here." Miral Paris's voice sounded every bit as young as Janeway knew the girl was. "If you'd like to come and have a look?"

He sighed, looking at Janeway, frustration clearly written in his strong features. "I'm sure it's..." Janeway shook her head, waved him on with a hand. "I'll be there in a minute, Miral." He closed the channel, turned back to his guest. "Kathryn —"

From somewhere, she found a smile. "I know, Chakotay. You have your work to do, and I have mine." She closed the coffee flask, set it back into her bag. He drained his mug and handed it to her, watched as she set it in the carryall. "You go ahead," she said, all the reassurance she could muster in her voice. "I can show myself out."

Still looking dissatisfied, he nodded with visible reluctance. "Well, now that you know where I am..." Half an offer.

"I won't be a stranger." Half an answer. Leaning up on tiptoe, she placed a kiss onto that bearded cheek. "Goodbye, Chakotay."

His hand closed lightly over her shoulder. "Goodbye, Kathryn." After a moment's hesitation, he turned and left the cabin.

Janeway looked around the spartan little room, taking in the narrow bed with its geometric-print spread, the little desk with its even smaller computer, the counter and its scattering of cookie crumbs. Last of all, the picture of a young girl, Chakotay's legacy from a different world, a different life, than any he and she had shared.

Gathering up the shoulder bag, she walked out of his quarters and to his transporter room, to beam back to her own world and her own life.

She wondered if she would ever see him again.

END

_Try not to think about what might have been  
_'_Cause that was then  
__And we have taken different roads  
__We can't go back again  
__There's no use givin' in  
__And there's no way to know  
__What might have been_

_"What Might Have Been," Little Texas_


	2. Return to the Borderlands

TITLE: Return to the Borderlands (The Borderlands Trilogy #2)  
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
PART: 2/3  
CODES: J/C  
RATING: G  
DISCLAIMERS: Paramount owns the characters, the situations, and any other aspects of _Star Trek: Voyager_ with real cash value. And if money is what you love, that is what you will receive…  
SUMMARY: Two years after the events of "Encounter in the Borderlands," Janeway finds herself drawn back to her former first officer's side.  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: "Encounter" was originally intended to be a one-shot, but I found that I just couldn't stand the hopelessness of the ending. Herein, I attempt to redeem Janeway and Chakotay's possible future.

**Return to the Borderlands  
**by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring

In the tiny cabin of her personal courier ship, _daVinci_, Admiral Kathryn Janeway sat at a small desk. Tomorrow she would rendezvous with the _Hastings_, her flagship, to begin an inspection tour of the borderlands starbases. On the monitor before her flickered the monotonous letters of reports, describing the status of the various outposts she was soon to visit. At the moment, though, she could barely focus on the screen. Her thoughts were wandering.

Two years. It had been two years since she had last come to inspect the borderlands starbases. Since she had last seen _him_, her former first officer and longtime friend, Chakotay. Since she had learned that, in the thirteen years since Chakotay had left Starfleet, he had become a civilian pilot and businessman, flying a small vessel for the freight-shipping business he co-owned with Tom Paris. Learned that he had also become a husband, and a father, and a widower. And that he had aged. Janeway had been shocked by how much, but then, he was living on a colony world, with less than state-of-the-art medical care. She still remembered what Chakotay had looked like then, with his long, graying hair, his untidy beard, and crinkles about his eyes. Yet, though his appearance had been very different that of the first officer she'd once known, he'd still had the same warm brown eyes and contagious smile she recalled from the earlier days of their acquaintance.

He had been much in her thoughts lately, though she was not certain why — probably, she guessed, simply because she was travelling into the region where he lived and worked. Perhaps she should try to see him while she was on her inspection tour...she blinked, startled, feeling a sudden sense of urgency surging through her at the thought. _I should go to him now, right away, this minute. The tour can wait._ She shook her head and took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm. _What the hell am I thinking of? I can't just neglect my duty to go gallivanting off on social calls._ Duty, protocol...those had been her watchwords ever since _Voyager_ had returned to the Alpha Quadrant, these eighteen years ago. She would visit Chakotay when and if her schedule permitted.

After a few more minutes of trying to study the reports on her screen, Janeway gave up and closed down the computer. She must be tired tonight; she couldn't focus. Stretching her cramped limbs, she rose from her chair and began preparing for bed.

* * *

The admiral tossed in her sleep, muttering restlessly, as the dream descended on her again. 

_She was sitting on a beach, one that had once been very well-known to her, but which she hadn't visited in a long time. The sky was blue and the sun bright, but a chill wind nipped the air, raising the small hairs on Kathryn's bare arms._

_On the rock before her sat a salamander. Though it resembled many others of its kind, she knew its identity immediately: like the beach, it was familiar if long-unseen. Today the tiny creature seemed uncharacteristically agitated. Twitching and flailing its tail, it scurried to the end of the rock, then back again, looking up at her as if expecting some sort of response. Then it skittered off the opposite side of the rock, so that she had to stand to see where it had gone. It was moving toward the water, something in its miniature gait suggesting urgency._

_Then she saw another creature on the beach, directly in the salamander's path. At the very edge of the breakers lay a big gray wolf, battered and evidently unconscious. Foamy white water washed over the magnificent creature, slowly but perceptibly rising, threatening to engulf and drown it. A wolf-puppy poked and nuzzled at the body, as if urging the larger wolf to rise, but to no avail. Even from this distance, she could hear the baby animal whimpering..._

Janeway woke to the chirp of a communications link opening in her cabin. "Admiral Janeway?" came the voice of Marla Danvers, her Gamma Shift pilot.

Janeway blinked the sleep from her eyes, fisting one hand over her mouth to capture a yawn. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Sorry to wake you, ma'am, but we're being hailed by a civilian communications relay in the borderlands."

"Why tell that to me?" Danvers had authorization to handle routine communications.

"He says he needs to speak to you, ma'am. Says it's personal, and it's urgent."

_Chakotay?_ She dismissed the thought impatiently; she had been spending far too much time thinking of him! _Impossible. He wouldn't know where to find me._

"And ma'am — he's using the Fleet Admiral's personal clearance codes."

A civilian in the borderlands, using Admiral Paris's clearance codes? That could only be Tom, the admiral's son and Janeway's former pilot. _But what did Tom tell the admiral to get the use of his private codes? And to find out where I am?_

Only one way to find out. "Put him through, Lieutenant," she ordered, rising and moving to her monitor.

The screen flared to life and there he sat: Tom Paris, sure enough, though so changed from his days on _Voyager_ that she would not have known him had she not seen so much of the admiral's collection of family pictures. At just over fifty, Tom had an angular face, the lower half masked by a heavy, gray-blond beard; a wavy fringe of hair, the same blend of colors as the beard, fell from slightly above his ears to just past his shoulders. He wore civilian clothes, of course, a coarse-woven pale-blue shirt partly covered by a dark-blue denim vest, both garments only serving to accentuate the still-bright blue of his eyes. Just now, those eyes were worried, the pale brows knit above them in a frown. "Admiral Janeway."

"Tom." She assayed a smile, but it didn't last long in the face of Tom's own expression. "It's good to see you."

He didn't return the pleasantry. "Admiral," he said urgently. "Thank God you were already in the region. You have to come to the Martinez Medical Center here on Metzlan. Right away."

"Is something wrong?" But the blood thundered in her ears, the picture rose up swift and certain in her mind, and before he could respond she knew the answer, knew whom this message was about. _Chakotay. Oh God, Chakotay..._

The bearded face twisted with pain. "It's Chakotay," he said heavily, confirming her intuition. "There's been an accident. I'm afraid he's—" Tom took a deep breath, started again. "The doctor says he might not make it."

* * *

Duty and protocol still dinned in the back of her mind, fighting for attention, but for once Kathryn Janeway would not let them have their say. Tom's words beat a steady rhythm in her head, loudly enough to drown out her old bywords: _The doctor says he might not make it..._

She had contacted the _Hastings_ and rescheduled her rendezvous with them for a few weeks hence. _Captain McMasters is probably getting a little tired of dealing with my whims,_ Janeway thought with grim amusement. It had been the admiral's own idea to move the inspections two months forward from their originally-scheduled date in the first place, and now she was the one who was moving them back. But either way, the timing of the inspections would still fall well within Starfleet's protocols for such matters. And it wasn't as if the stations were going anywhere, after all.

Then she'd instructed Danvers to set a course for Metzlan. _DaVinci_ was about eighteen hours out from the colony planet now, and Tom Paris had their flight plan, so that he would know where to contact her if there was any news about Chakotay's condition. _The doctor says he might not make it._

Impossible to think that Chakotay could die. Impossible that he could have survived decades in Fleet, years in the Maquis, and more years in the Delta Quadrant, survived Borg and Cardassians and Kazon and Borg again, to be felled by a senseless accident. According to Tom, he had been in Paris Shipping's maintenance hangar, working on some minor repairs to the stabilizer grid on his ship, the _Guyasuta_, when the fields holding the grid in place above him had shorted out. Chakotay had apparently tried to roll out of the way, but hadn't been fast enough; the heavy grid had laid the side of his head open. He'd suffered a cracked skull, a concussion, and related damage, not to mention the loss of a lot of blood.

Luckily for him, another member of his crew had been working not far away, heard the sound of the grid hitting the deck and Chakotay's stifled cry, and come to see what had happened.

Unluckily for him, it had been nearly half-an-hour before they could get him to the doctor. (_At least it _was _a doctor,_ Janeway thought thankfully, remembering that Chakotay's wife Nakeema had died in childbirth for want of a medical professional. "We don't exactly have state-of-the-art medical care," he had told Janeway, years later, his dark eyes still haunted by the memory of Nakeema's death.) She had managed to stanch his wounds, and repair the worst of the damage to his skull and his face, but apparently even she was helpless to bring him out of the coma those injuries had caused. He lay comatose now, nominally alive but perilously close to being otherwise.

If he died now, before she had the chance to reach him, to speak to him, to tell him – tell him _what_?

She wouldn't think of it. He wasn't going to die.

She needed to compose herself and get some sleep. According to the ship's chronometer, it was 0315 San Francisco time, and she still had a long flight ahead of her.

Returning to her bunk, Janeway pulled the blankets over herself and tried to sleep. After what seemed a long time, she descended into an uneasy slumber.

_Her animal guide stood before the big gray wolf, as close as it could come without being washed away itself by the tide. The wolf-puppy ignored the salamander, still focusing all its attention on the bigger creature, trying to chivvy it to its feet._

_As Janeway approached, the pup picked up its head and looked at her. With a low growl and bared teeth, it moved between her and the adult wolf, clearly guarding its elder._

_But Janeway understood puppies, and extended her hand cautiously for the baby wolf to sniff. "Easy, little one," she crooned softly, reassuringly. "I'm here to help." The puppy hesitated, as if considering her words, and licked her hand. Then it padded back to the big wolf, looked up at Janeway, and whined._

_Drawing closer, Janeway could see what had felled the larger animal: a gash on the side of its head that had sheered away a chunk of fur and flesh. Her heart sank at the seriousness of the injury. What could she do?_

_First things first. Dropping to her knees, she wrapped her arms around the big furry body, under the forepaws, and tried to drag the wolf out of reach of the oncoming tide. But the wolf was slippery and heavy, a dead weight in her arms, and the tide was rising more quickly than she'd thought..._

Janeway sat up abruptly, heart thundering, arms still aching with the weight of the wolf.

* * *

Martinez Medical Center turned out to be nothing like the huge, bustling medical centers Janeway was used to, back in the center of the Federation. It was a small, one-story building made of wood, with windows indicating perhaps thirty rooms. In the darkness of Metzlan's night most of those windows were curtained, little or no light spilling through. 

Tom Paris met her at the door, catching her up in a tight, wordless hug that surprised her; though the pilot had always been a physical person, he had seldom demonstrated that trait with her. When he pulled back, she saw that his eyes were shadowed, the creases lining his face deeper than they had been just a day-and-a-half ago.

Fear kept her silent for a moment, before she managed, "Chakotay?"

Tom sighed. "No difference."

"Can I see him?"

"Of course." With the old-fashioned gallantry that seemed to come instinctively to the Paris men, he offered her his arm and led her into the building. The hall was white, bright and sparkling clean even if they were made of plaster rather than the soothing metal/plastic blend she was used to. As they walked through the corridor, the harsh smell of antiseptics assailed Janeway's nostrils, along with the scents of other chemicals she couldn't name. (Another difference from what she was used to; on Earth, hospitals were pristinely odor-free.) At this hour, there were few people about; the one man and two women they passed were carrying padds and bandages (_cloth bandages?_ she thought, surprised at the sight), presumably members of the nursing staff.

"He hasn't come to since the accident," Tom told her softly.

That couldn't be good. "I thought you said the damage had been repaired."

"I did. It was. Everything the doctor could get to."

"What do you mean?" Janeway demanded, discomfited by the qualification.

"Our medical facilities aren't exactly state-of-the-art," he said, voice low, unconsciously echoing the words Chakotay himself had used, years ago, to explain his wife's death in childbirth. "She repaired everything she could get to. But apparently there's fluid leaking into his brain; she can't tell where or from what. She says it could be fixed – somewhere. But she doesn't have the tools here."

"Why not?" The words came out more harshly than she had intended.

"Captain – Admiral —" Tom said tightly, "this isn't a Starfleet medical facility. We don't get everything we need issued to us by some paper-pusher at headquarters. What we have is what we can afford." He stopped in front of a closed door. "Most of the time, it's enough." His lips pressed together in a line, the blue eyes darkening with what looked like pain as he opened the door.

The room was dimly lit, undoubtedly in deference to the hour, but it could have been a dozen times brighter and still all Janeway would have seen was _him_, Chakotay. Her former first officer lay upon and beneath white sheets in a bed almost as narrow as the one she remembered seeing in his quarters on the freighter _Guyasuta_. A bandage covered one side of his head, the whiteness of the fabric in startling contrast to the livid bruises that stood out on his olive skin. Some of his abundant hair had obviously been shaven off to allow treatment of his injury; the rest, long, wavy, and more gray than black, lay scattered over a thick ivory pillow. The eyes that Janeway remembered so well, the eyes that had conveyed so much, were closed now, and looked a little sunken in that broad-planed face.

Lights blinked and soft beeps sounded from an ancient medical monitor over his head; beneath it hung his medicine wheel, stones mounted in what Janeway assumed were their proper places. A thin line of tubing ran from an elevated fluid bag to some sort of port buried in one muscular forearm.

Janeway's heart hammered as she crossed the room to stand at his side. Reaching over to touch a broad, bared shoulder, she called "Chakotay," softly, foolishly, as if the sound of her voice would rouse him from his deep slumber. But of course he did not stir.

Tom's warnings of Chakotay's condition had done nothing to prepare her for the sight of him so still and pale and helpless, surrounded by primitive equipment that her scientist's judgment screamed was wholly inadequate to his needs. Panic squeezed her heart, tightening her grip on his shoulder, as the revelation hit her with full force: he might actually die, here, now, before her eyes. And she had never told him...never told him...

Behind her, someone yawned, a sound that somehow seemed too small to belong to Tom Paris. "Who are you?" a young girl's voice demanded sleepily. "What are you doing to my dad?"

_My dad._ Hand still on Chakotay's shoulder, Janeway turned. On a chair near the door, blinking the vestiges of sleep from her eyes, sat a long-limbed, black-haired girl, with the coltish build of a preadolescent. She had a look of Chakotay about her, something about the deep-brown eyes...

Tom Paris had already turned to the girl, kneeling down beside her cot. "This is Admiral Janeway, Lanaya. You remember hearing about Captain Janeway, back on _Voyager_? Well, this is her. And she's come to see him."

"Why?" the girl pressed.

"Because he wanted her to," Tom said gently. "He told B'Elanna and me years ago that, if anything happened to him, we were supposed to contact her."

"Why?"

"You can ask him that when he wakes up, Lanaya."

The girl's full lips trembled. "When will he wake up, Uncle Tom?"

"I don't know, Lanaya," Tom answered softly. "Soon." He looked over his shoulder at Janeway. "You'll have to excuse her, Admiral. She's tired. She's been here the whole time. I was just going to take her home when we got the word your courier was in."

"But I don't wanna go!" the girl protested, trying to stifle another yawn. "I wanna stay with my dad."

"Your dad would want you to get some sleep, honey. In a bed."

"Uncle To-o-om..."

"He'll be all right, Lanaya. He'll be right here when you get back."

"Promise?" She sounded even younger than her evident years, and her eyes were pleading.

Tom ducked his head and looked away from the girl, but he answered steadily, "I promise. Now come with me, honey."

Still looking unhappy, Lanaya pushed herself up and out of the chair. Walking over to Chakotay, she insinuated herself between Janeway and the head of the bed to place a kiss on her father's cheek, just below the snowy swath of bandages. "Bye, Daddy," she said, her little-girl voice almost breaking Janeway's heart. "I'll be back tomorrow." She looked up at the woman, a mere acknowledgement of her presence, and went to Tom, placing her hand in his.

He turned to Janeway. "Will you be all right? Do you want me to come back?"

She tried to smile at him, tried to put a captain's calmness and authority into her words. "I'll be fine, Tom. Get some sleep."

He looked uncertain. "If you need me or B'Elanna or – or anything – our comm number's at the nurses' station."

"I'll be fine, Tom." She thought it sounded convincing, but he did not seem reassured. Nonetheless, he left, leaving Janeway alone with her former first officer for the first time in two years.

It was not the reunion she had hoped for; yet it mattered that she was there, beside him. Even if he did not know it – would never know it – she had come to him when he needed her. She had not abandoned him. Again.

_I never abandoned him,_ she argued with herself. _He's the one who left._ Still...

After her last brief encounter with Chakotay, Janeway had returned home, to Earth and her beloved Starfleet Command. Nothing much had happened in her absence; there was nothing she could point at and say, "this has changed since I left." And yet, things had not seemed the same. She had remembered the anger in her former first officer's voice, when she'd suggested that Tom and B'Elanna's daughter could continue her education at Starfleet Academy, and wondered at the cause of it. Why should he so resent the same organization that had trained _him_, which he had served for many years?

For the first time in years, she'd asked herself _why_ Chakotay had left Starfleet a second time, only three years after _Voyager_'s return to the Alpha Quadrant? When he left, he'd said it was because Starfleet had no place for a former Maquis, but she'd thought that surely that had only been his own sensitivity. He had encountered a few officials who resented his old renegade ties, and taken their opinion for Starfleet's position on the matter.

Thirteen years after his departure, she finally found the courage to look into Starfleet's position regarding the Maquis. Found that, of the small handful of Starfleet-officers-turned-resistance-fighters who'd survived the group's annihilation by the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar, Chakotay was the only one who had ever been reinstated to Starfleet. That he and B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris (if Tom could truly be considered a Maquis, given his brief period of service) were the only ones who had received the offer. Perhaps a dozen former officers who'd become Maquis had gone on to act as Federation agents in the Dominion War, but even that service had not been enough to win them reinstatement. It had, however, gotten most released from prison.

Because he had mentioned the latest history texts and their view of the Maquis, Janeway had called up the Academy's preferred basic text, _Federation History: An Overview_, on her computer screen. And read, uncomfortably, the lines describing Chakotay's former allegiance as "a terrorist group whose violent acts precipitated the Dominion War."

Janeway had realized then, with some shame, that Chakotay had not been wrong, about Starfleet's view of him and his life, or in his decision to leave the Fleet. Why had she found it so much easier to believe in Starfleet's goodness than in his honesty?

And why had she let him walk away?

A tiny bleep from Chakotay's bedside monitor recalled Janeway to the present, and she looked down at the unconscious man almost with startlement. He was a graying, long-haired, bearded man now, a civilian and a colonist, not one of her officers. But he was Chakotay all the same.

Her hand found his shoulder again, and closed over it. Its warmth and breadth were much as they had always been, and, unbidden, her thoughts went back to the first time she had touched his bare shoulder, back on _Voyager_. To one of the first times she had almost lost him, after his flesh had been sundered from his spirit by a voracious alien entity who sought to consume the crew's very life force. She had touched him, felt the living pulse of his flesh beneath her hand, and realized in her bones, in her soul, that this was not some holodeck creature, not some creation of air and thought. Nor was it some alien who would capture her affections and depart, nor yet some being who existed only to fill his niche in the ordered arrangement of her ship. This was a man, a vital, breathing, not-entirely-predictable human being. And he had looked back up at her, with warmth, and vulnerability, and what she now (and on some level, had even then) recognized as affection.

They had flirted with one another a little bit by that point, casual, friendly byplay that acknowledged the other as an attractive being, no more. It occurred to her that it might be dangerous to keep flirting, that some day it might lead to demands she wasn't ready to meet. But there was a certain thrill to the risk, and so over the next months she continued, never letting him close enough for trouble.

Though she had come to care for him, she had not expected him to love her. Yet love her he did, as she learned one memorable night on New Earth when he crafted an "ancient legend" to reveal his feelings. Had they stayed on New Earth, she had no doubt they would have become lovers, and almost as little doubt that she would have found great pleasure in the relationship.

But of course they had not stayed on New Earth. Once back on _Voyager_, she remembered how nearly he'd stirred her to forget about her efforts to find a cure so that she could return to her ship and her duty. The memory frightened her a bit. Then they nearly lost – rather, _did_ lose, and barely recovered – the ship to Seska and the Kazon, on a mission flown for Chakotay's sake, and she questioned whether her feelings for him had again interfered with her ship and her duty.

Since the lapse – if it had been a lapse – had almost cost them and their crew everything, she determined it would not happen again. From that day forward, she kept him at arm's length, refused to act on his declaration on New Earth, or even to acknowledge its existence. For a time, he resisted that, offering definite, but never forceful, reminders of his feelings. Finally, in the face of what he probably perceived as disinterest, he more-or-less gave up on engaging her deeper emotions, accepting friendship as the defining parameter of their relationship.

Each of them eventually formed other relationships, of varying levels of significance. None were long-lived. She told herself that was simply because of their circumstances, as they were seldom in one place long enough to form relationships with the natives, and perhaps it was even true. With each relationship, she made a mental note of _well, that settles that_, never quite articulating what "that" was. But as each one ended, they were back at one another's sides again.

Then _Voyager_ returned to Earth, and for a time Janeway was so busy seeing to the welfare of her crew that she had no time to think of more personal matters. In any event, she thought he'd finally found a lasting relationship with Seven of Nine, and wouldn't be interested in anything more profound with her, Kathryn. (She never had learned what had ultimately caused them to go their separate ways.) But when the dust had settled, and everyone had found their respective places, he was still with Kathryn. Not aggressively or obtrusively, but still there, at her side.

Then he had gone, and she had not tried to stop him. And she had been alone.

Oh, there had been other people around her, a whole Fleet of them. And she had her commcall chats with her sister, and Sunday dinners with her nieces, and Tuesday lunches with Admiral Paris. But his loss had left a hole in her life, an emptiness at her center. She had barely known that, never acknowledged it, until the day two years ago when she had come to the borderlands on an inspection tour, and encountered him. And realized then, when it seemed too late, when he had finally and irrevocably moved on, what the emptiness in her heart was.

Her fingers reached out, as if of their own accord, and stroked a long, curling strand of hair where it lay on his pillow. "It was you," she said softly, the first words she'd spoken since Paris had left. "It was always you, wasn't it?" But of course he did not answer.

"Have you been lonely too?" Chakotay had a daughter, and B'Elanna and Tom for friends, and he'd had, however briefly, a wife. Janeway wondered if he'd loved his Nakeema, found herself hoping he had. She would hate to think he had been as alone as she...but no matter how he'd felt about Nakeema, she was gone now.

She remembered, just minutes ago, hearing Tom Paris tell Chakotay's daughter, "He told B'Elanna and me years ago that, if anything happened to him, we were supposed to contact her." _Me. _Janeway wondered suddenly _when_ Chakotay had said that, if he'd had the same sense of revelation after their last meeting as she had.

She might never know, now, for here he lay, and if he were not already past all waking, perhaps he would soon be. Had she come all this way to stand here and watch him die? She still could not believe it. But standing here and seeing his pallor, his closed and sunken eyes, the primitive tube running into his arm to provide him drugs or nourishment, she could not deny the possibility, either.

If only she could get him to Starfleet facilities, to decent 24th-century medical care! According to Tom, the doctor had said his injuries could be completely repaired with the right facilities. Starfleet might have no love for Chakotay, but he had the right to claim a veteran's benefits from them, including use of their health-care system. She dared not have him moved now, for fear it would worsen his condition. But if he woke...if he woke, and his condition could be stabilized, she could take him to have him treated on her flagship, the _Hastings_, or on one of the bases she was inspecting.

She wondered how he would react to being commandeered like that, hauled off to a Starfleet facility whether he wished it or not. He might resent it, but she did not think he would refuse outright. Proud he might be, but not so proud that he would insist on dying when there were other alternatives. Probably his daughter would want to come with him, but that would be easy enough to arrange.

And if Chakotay were completely restored to health? What would Janeway do – what would both of them do – then?

She didn't know. He still had his life here on Metzlan, and she would eventually have to return to her own, back on Earth. She did not know if he would even want her to remain part of his life.

She _did_ know he wanted that. _He asked for me._

And she knew that she wanted him to remain part of her own life. _It's been a long time since that night he told me the legend of the Angry Warrior. Maybe it's too late now, to claim what we might have had if I'd turned to him then. Maybe all we can be to one another, after all these years, is friends. But if that's all I can have, I want that._

_And if it's not too late for something more...?_ Well, she would answer that question if the situation came to pass. The important thing was, that she would not let him walk away from her again. She knew what he meant to her, and she would not deny it any longer.

And all of this would be moot if he did not recover from his injuries now. She squeezed his shoulder and looked hard at him, willing him to wake, but he lay still.

Sighing, she drew a chair next to his bed and sat down, her hand on his upper arm as she settled in for what could be a long vigil. After a time she dozed, or thought she did.

_Gripping the wolf's heavy, water-slicked body as tightly as she could, she managed to drag it out of reach of the encroaching breakers. She knelt over the creature, inspecting its injuries with her fingertips. The gash at the side of its head was not so bad as she'd feared, but it would still need care. She thought now that she might be able to help it._

_Beside its – parent? – the little wolf whined, nosing at the larger animal as if trying to rouse it. Not far from all of them, her salamander watched and waited._

_Suddenly one golden eye opened, and the wolf looked at her. With a sigh, it lifted its head and licked her hand._

Janeway started awake, to see Chakotay stirring. "Chakotay?" she breathed, her heart hammering.

Even her first sight of the Alpha Quadrant after seven lost years had not been so welcome to Kathryn Janeway as the sight she saw now: two warm brown eyes opening to look right at her. Nor had any sound been so welcome as that of a very familiar voice, hoarse and raspy, murmuring, "Kathryn."

At the dryness of the sound, she reached without thinking for his water glass, poured a little liquid into it, and put it to his lips so that he could sip. He accepted the drink with obvious gratitude, after a few moments turning his head aside to let her know he'd had enough.

She set the glass down and simply looked at him, at the wonderful opened eyes that told her it was not over, that all their chances were not lost.

He smiled at her tenderly, his expression as open and trusting as a child's, the affection that shone from it enough to steal her breath. "Kathryn. I knew you'd come."

She reached over and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. "For you, always."

_I know you're out there somewhere_  
_Somewhere, somewhere  
__I know you're out there somewhere  
__Somewhere you can hear my voice  
__I know I'll find you somehow  
__Somehow, somehow  
__I know I'll find you somehow  
__And somehow I'll return again to you_

_"I Know You're Out There Somewhere," The Moody Blues_

END

* * *

**FEEDBACK**

**Camryn**, thanks for the good words on "Encounter"! Hope you found "Return" equally vivid. I'm rewriting the third story right now, but I'll try not to keep you waiting too long to see how things work out.


	3. A Woman of the Borderlands

TITLE: A Woman of the Borderlands (The Borderlands Trilogy #3)  
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
PART: 3/3  
CODES: J/C  
RATING: G  
DISCLAIMERS: Paramount owns the characters, the situations, and any other aspects of _Star Trek: Voyager_ with real cash value. And if money is what you love, that is what you will receive…  
THANKS TO: Diane Bellomo, my tireless beta reader, who's probably thoroughly sick of this story after having read it over so many times! Kathy Speck, my "storying" buddy, whose suggestion helped me get through a thorny plot problem. Thea Prothero, who unknowingly kicked off this trilogy by asking for a story for her club newsletter, some eight years ago.  
SUMMARY: Kathryn learns that the course of true love is strewn with pragmatic obstacles. Set three years after "Return to the Borderlands."

* * *

A Woman of the Borderlands  
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring

_It's not the way I hoped or how I planned  
But somehow, it's enough..._

Kathryn Janeway stood at the window of her tiny cabin and looked outward at the stars. For as long as she could remember, they had been her guides, and her goals, and her existence, and now, in this journey that would define the rest of her life, she couldn't help wondering if she were abandoning them. Kathryn Janeway, former captain of _Voyager_, lately admiral of Starfleet, settling on a planet? Surrounding herself with earthy greens and solid browns instead of this diamond-lit blackness?

In truth, she reminded herself, it had been some years since she'd spent much time in space. Though her duties had included starship and starbase inspections, as well as a few diplomatic missions, far more often the work of a Starfleet admiral had kept her feet firmly planted on Earth. She hadn't truly walked among the stars since the days of her command, these two decades gone.

But she and the stars, they had a history. If she'd still had a command, still been a denizen of star-bright space, would she ever have thought to seek another home, another love?

She didn't know. She hoped so.

The first time she'd come to this particular region of space, some six years ago, she hadn't been seeking anything. She'd been on an inspection tour for Starfleet Command, when a distress call summoned her ship to the aid of a small civilian freighter – and its captain, Janeway's erstwhile first officer Chakotay. The reunion had proved bittersweet, long-abandoned feelings struggling to surface amidst a sense of futility: his life had become so different, so distant, from her own that even renewing their friendship seemed a flat impossibility.

Three years later, she _had_ come to this area in search of something, though it hadn't been home or love. Drawn by dreams of an injured, dying wolf (which she had somehow recognized as emblematic of a certain Native American), she'd flown to Chakotay's home planet, Metzlan. He'd been hurt in a senseless accident, and she found him in a primitive clinic, unconscious and possibly dying.

As she sat vigil, willing him to wake, she'd realized that if he did, she would have to find some way to reconcile their different worlds and their different lives. She could not leave him to die alone. More than that: having finally realizing what she felt for him, she knew she couldn't return to being alone.

Once he woke, he seemed equally unwilling to part company. Despite her resolution and his desire, after a few days Janeway had to return to her duty, and Chakotay to his work and his life on Metzlan. But they were determined that their separation, this time, should not be permanent.

Thanks to Starfleet's communications relay systems, it was easy enough for the two of them to correspond, and so they did, with a frequency that belied all the years in which neither had sent a syllable. Listening to, and watching, his messages, she enjoyed the familiar tones and the well-remembered quirky sense of humor, learned more of the details of his life, and grew used to the changes in his face and the gray of his hair. But she'd never thought correspondence would be enough, and it was not.

Visiting was difficult. Her inspection tours to the Borderlands were frustratingly infrequent, and travelling to the area on her leave time was time-consuming and more than a little inconvenient. He managed one trip to Earth, with his adolescent daughter in tow, but she knew that for him the trip was expensive, and took him away from a business that needed him.

It was on that visit that he'd decided they had to be realistic about the prospects for their relationship.

_It was late in the evening, and Chakotay had finally prevailed on his daughter, Lanaya, to go to bed. Now he and Kathryn sat on her tiny balcony, wineglasses in hand and San Francisco's city lights in their eyes._

"_I've never told you," he said quietly, "how grateful I am to have your friendship again."_

_It had the sound of leading up to something. Uncertain how to reply, she raised her glass to him and ventured, "I'm glad to have your friendship too."_

"_We spent a long time apart. My fault, I know." He was, after all, the one who'd chosen to leave Earth, all these years ago._

"_Both our faults, I think." She was the one who'd failed to offer any reason why he should stay._

_He waved that aside. "Well, after all these years I guess it doesn't really matter whose fault it is. All I'm saying is that, after all this time, we should probably just be happy for what we have."_

"_Meaning?" The tiny chill that went through her didn't originate from her contact with the cool wineglass._

_He set his goblet aside, his dark eyes meeting her lighter ones. "Meaning that I know what you want from this, Kathryn – I know what _I_ want from it – but I don't think we can have it. Not at this late date. This isn't like the days when we used to work together and live practically in each other's laps." He looked away, sighing. "We've both moved on. My life – everything I have, everything I am – is back on Metzlan. I can't leave Metzlan now – I wouldn't if I could; it's Lanaya's home. And your life is here, on Earth. I know you aren't about to give up this," the vague movement of his hand indicating the city, and probably Starfleet Headquarters as well, "to move to a colony world. You're a 24th-century woman, as I recall." The tic of his lips was probably meant to be a smile._

_She couldn't match even that minimal effort. "I'm a 24th-century woman," she said, her voice a little thick, "who's tired of being alone. And settling for friendship isn't good enough any more. Especially not with you." Before she could think of all the good and sensible reasons why she should not – why he was right and why she should leave well enough alone – she leaned forward and kissed him. After a moment's hesitation, he met the kiss warmly, a still-strong arm drawing her into his embrace._

"_Damn you," he said huskily, when they had done. "You never were one to take the easy way out, were you?"_

"_I can be," she said softly, remembering all their wasted years. "But not any more. Not about us."_

Despite their resolution, the practical problems of maintaining their relationship remained. They were still, quite literally, worlds apart. He had financial and familial obligations to keep him where he was, and she – could she really seek out a new world, a new life, at this late date?

She knew she had to try. But first, there were obstacles she had to overcome.

_Usually she and Phoebe simply conversed over the comm unit; sitting here in her sister's living room was enough to make Kathryn remember why._

_There was nothing of comfort in Phoebe's well-appointed living room. In the latest fashion, chairs and sofa simply extruded from the walls, pale blue plasticine over the snowy white carpet. Accompanying tables, also blue plasticine, were each supported by one centered, crystalline leg that looked too insubstantial to bear the weight._

_With an artist's sense of colors, Phoebe had dressed to match the room, in a stylish, perfectly-fitted tunic of ice-blue, and light gray tights that showed off her long legs to perfection. Her white hair was drawn back into a sleek, elegant chignon, no hair out of place. As far too often in their lives, merely looking at her was enough to make Kathryn feel plain and unkempt._

_In such a perfect setting, it seemed almost indecent to talk about anything as messy as human emotions. For anything of less import than her decision about Chakotay, Kathryn wouldn't have come. But since their mother's death, Phoebe was her closest relative, and she thought she should try to make Phoebe understand._

_She should have known it would be a wasted trip._

"_Kathryn," Phoebe said, manicured hand on one hip, unlined eyes wide with shock, "are you serious? Moving to a colony world? At _your_ age?"_

"_I've never been more serious in my life," Kathryn said firmly. She was not a little girl and she did not have to win Phoebe's approval._

"_Then you've lost your mind," Phoebe said dismissively._

_Some empathy, however, would have been nice. "Phoebe, I thought you knew what it was like to be in love."_

_Curled lashes blinked over flawlessly blue eyes. "I've been in love, Kathryn. _My_ love didn't expect me to give up my whole life and move out to the middle of nowhere for him." Not that such consideration had done Daniel much good in the long term: Phoebe had divorced him while their daughters were still young. "And I wouldn't have gone if he had."_

"_If you'll forgive my saying it, Phoebe, then you weren't in love." Kathryn rose and moved to a window, hands resting on the white marble sill as she looked through the clear glass. But beyond the windows was only a series of other apartment buildings, much like Phoebe's. "And just for the record, he didn't ask me to do anything. But when we first came back to Earth, he was willing to build his life around mine, and I didn't take him up on it." She hadn't even acknowledged it, or asked herself why he stayed or what he was waiting for._

"_That doesn't mean you _owe_ him."_

"_No, but it does mean that I really don't have the right to ask him to do it again, don't you see that?" _

"_So instead you're going to build your life around his?" Phoebe's voice dripped scorn._

"_No. I'm going to find a way we can have a life together."_

_The other woman snorted. "Kathryn, you can't tell me you've thought this through. Suppose you do go to this planet with this great and just-remembered love of your life. Then what?"_

"_Excuse me?"_

"_Then what? What do you do when you get there? I can't imagine there's much of a market for Starfleet admirals in that neck of the woods."_

"_I was thinking of retiring, actually," Kathryn answered frostily._

"_Bull. You're the queen of workaholics – you have been since we were girls. You'd go crazy inside of a month – and God help you when you do, since according to you this place doesn't have decent medical facilities! Godalmighty, there isn't even coffee there!"_

_The conversation only degenerated from that point. _

Whatever Kathryn might have thought of Phoebe's presentation; she had to admit her younger sister hadn't been entirely wrong in her assessment of Metzlan. Kathryn honestly thought she could manage without Starfleet (indeed, given her years in its bureaucracy she could manage without Starfleet rather nicely), and she _might_ – though the thought had the power to make her wince – be able to manage without coffee. But Metzlan's dearth of skilled medical care had been, and still was, troubling. The situation had improved in the years since Chakotay's wife, Nakeema, had died in childbirth, but there were still precious few doctors and the clinics and hospitals were tiny. The injury that Chakotay himself had suffered, a few years back, wouldn't have caused him more than a few days inconvenience on a world with state-of-the-art hospitals; on Metzlan, it had nearly cost him his life.

Intolerable. Unacceptable. She couldn't live with that.

She wouldn't live with that. A Starfleet admiral did not merely have to accept things the way they were, on a colony world or elsewhere. So she had gotten to work.

A Starfleet admiral could bring considerable influence to bear in securing grants and endowments for worthy causes, and Kathryn had used her influence shamelessly, even enlisting Fleet Admiral Owen Paris in her efforts. (Considering that Tom Paris and his family were also Metzlan residents, the Fleet Admiral had been more than willing to be so used.) As a result, Metzlan's tiny Martinez Medical Center, where once she had witnessed Chakotay's fight for life, was now in the process of tripling in size. Kathryn's seven years of untouched Delta Quadrant pay, wisely invested, had provided an endowment to hire additional medical staff; similar offerings from Owen Paris and others, and pledges from the Metzlan settlers themselves, served to ensure that the expanded clinic would be well-staffed and properly equipped.

Kathryn crossed to her narrow bed, and reviewed yet again a certain much-read datapadd. A sober, but satisfied, smile turned up the corners of her lips as she once again read over the plans and projections. She wouldn't have to see Chakotay suffer or die if there was anything modern medicine could do to save him. Nor would he have to see her, or his daughter, in such straits.

Her medical efforts had indirectly led her to an answer for another of Phoebe's questions: _What do you do when you get there?_ Phoebe was right (Kathryn grudgingly admitted); she couldn't handle retirement. Her love for Chakotay had not changed the fact that she wasn't cut out to be any kind of a farmer – childhood lessons about gardening aside. And she was certainly no homemaker.

Administration, however, had always been one of her strengths, with experience only honing the gifts nature had bestowed. An expanded medical facility demanded a greater number of skilled administrators, and what Kathryn had done to make that larger facility possible made her the best possible candidate for such work. Rather to her surprise, Kathryn found herself looking forward to the job; it had been so long since she'd actually had any _new_ challenges that maneuvering the ropes of medical administration ought to be interesting.

Kathryn looked down at her clothing, still a bit surprised to see herself clad in something other than a uniform. But the pale blue blouse and darker, sturdy slacks were neat enough, and suitable to her new station.

She'd been told they were flattering, as well, which was the reason she'd selected them today. She wanted to look her best – after all, it wasn't every day that a woman arrived at her own home.

In his messages, Chakotay had told her that he'd made preparations for her arrival, adding rooms onto his home to allow her office space and a workroom. There was a new bathtub in the back room, he'd added slyly, and she strongly suspected that it would bear more than a slight resemblance to the one he'd crafted for her on New Earth, all these years ago. There had even been a mention of some Talaxian tomato seedlings for the garden.

Apparently he'd also persuaded his business partner, Tom, that it was time to take him off regular flying duty. Paris Shipping had grown large enough to need more administrators of its own, and Chakotay's skills in that area were quite as formidable as Kathryn's. So they wouldn't merely be based on the same planet, with her working at the hospital while he flew his missions; they would be _together_. Her heart, and her smile, warmed at the thought.

He'd been right before: this wouldn't be the life they might have had, had they yielded to their feelings for one another earlier in their lives. Some things, once lost, could never be reclaimed. But it would still be a good life. A life worth living.

On her last visit to Metzlan, she had even, finally, begun to make some headway with Chakotay's daughter.

_Janeway emerged from her bedroom yawning, wishing with almost passionate intensity for a single cup of strong black coffee. (How Chakotay had managed to _survive_ all these years on a planet without it, she was sure she didn't know.) Belting her long robe more tightly around her, she walked out to the kitchen, seeking a cup of the strong tea that her host favored these days._

_She found the tea easily enough, in a bright copper-toned kettle on the little metal-burnered stove. Rather to her surprise, however, she saw little else by way of prepared food. Usually by the time she woke Chakotay had already dressed and begun cooking breakfast, but today there was no sign of either him or his work. Her stomach growled at the lack._

_At the burnished wood table, Lanaya hunched sullenly over a glass of something vaguely purple, probably juice. Noticing Kathryn looking at her, she managed a little extra emphasis in her scowl._

_Kathryn was decidedly not in the mood for adolescent hostility this early in her day, especially not the kind Lanaya all-too-easily generated in her presence. Only years of diplomatic training enabled her to summon the tone and appearance of civility as she asked, "Where's your father?"_

"_Work." At Kathryn's look, she went on to mutter, "Uncle Tom called about something at the office, some accounts or something. Dad said he might be gone a couple of hours." She finger-combed her long black hair back, irritably._

_There seemed to be nothing much to say to that, so Kathryn made a noise of acknowledgement and went about getting her tea. Once fortified by a few sips of caffeine, she yielded to the importuning of her empty stomach and asked, "What should we do for breakfast?"_

_Lanaya's look was scornful. "Can't you cook?"_

_In the face of such blatant disdain, there seemed little else for Kathryn to do but draw herself up to her full height, square her shoulders, look regally down at Lanaya (something she could only do when the tall young woman was seated), and answer firmly, "No."_

_Lanaya's jaw dropped. Kathryn suspected the girl had been hoping for a defensive response, probably followed by Kathryn attempting to prove her culinary skills in a foredoomed attempt to impress Lanaya. The straightforward admission had clearly caught her off guard. "Not at all?" the girl managed at last._

"_Not at all."_

_Lanaya, improbably, giggled. "You're kidding me! What kind of a colonist _are_ you?" For once, there was nothing accusatory in her tone, only amusement. That fact alone was enough to make Kathryn smile – a trifle guardedly, true, but a real smile all the same._

"_My own kind. Do you know if that tavern on the village square serves breakfast?"_

"_Yeah, I think so. Why?"_

"_Great. Unless _you_ want to cook, why don't you go get dressed so we can head downtown? I'm buying."_

_Lanaya started to laugh._

An announcement sounded over the ship's comm. "Passengers and hands, please secure for landing." As per earlier instructions, Kathryn assumed her seat, waiting with less than perfect patience as the vessel touched down.

Her travelling companion met her in the corridor: Phoebe, her white hair uncharacteristically tousled, was clad in a pink pantsuit that was entirely inappropriate for the world on which they were about to debark. After Phoebe's daughters had told her about all of Kathryn's plans and preparations, the younger Janeway sister had commed Kathryn and told her tartly that she was going to Metzlan long enough to attend Kathryn's wedding, if only to see "who the hell this Romeo is to deserve the kind of trouble you're going to."

Despite the sharp words and the ridiculous pantsuit, Kathryn felt a rush of love for Phoebe. She extended a hand to steady her sister as they walked down the ramp, and smiled as she remembered how Phoebe herself had presented the solution to the last of Kathryn's concerns about Metzlan. _"By the way," Phoebe had said, "if you're determined to go through with this, I need your shipping address. I owe you a wedding present, so I was thinking I might buy you a subscription to the Coffee of the Month Club."_

They emerged from the passenger ship into a clear, cool Metzlan night. A little cluster of people waited at the gates to the landing field, and Kathryn easily picked out Chakotay's tall figure amongst the others. Lanaya was gathered to his side, waving as they approached, but Kathryn's eyes were all for the girl's father. Though she couldn't see his face well from this distance, she could tell he was grinning, that dazzling, irrepressible grin that had never failed to draw a matching smile from her.

She was home. After nearly three decades, she was finally home.

She looked up at Metzlan's sky, and saw a thousand bright stars shining in blessing.

_And now we're standing face to face  
__Isn't this world a crazy place  
__Just when I thought our chance had passed  
__You go and save the best for last_

_-- "Save the Best for Last," as sung by Vanessa Williams_

END

* * *

**Feedback**

**Terri Stephens**, I think you make an interesting point about Kathryn and her tendency to feel she has the only valid point-of-view. That's part of what I enjoyed about **making** her consider another view: in this case, Chakotay's.

**Kalyn**, thanks! I hope you enjoyed the conclusion.

**Mizvoy**, having read some of your J/C, I'm flattered that you like the way I handle the characters. I did think Chakotay would eventually move on if he didn't get what he was hoping for from KJ. But of course that wouldn't mean that he wouldn't be willing to reconsider once she figured things out….

**Camryn**, having gotten a stepmother of my own when I was about Lanaya's age, I think it will take a while for KJ and "Lanny" to warm up to each other. Hopefully I've given them a believable start.

**A Lee En** (love your pen name, BTW!), you couldn't have given me another compliment that would have pleased me more than what you said about the characters! Thanks.

**no name given**, you raise a good point, but I had really pictured the _DaVinci_ as being too small to boast more than the most basic medical equipment (almost certainly not including an EMH).

**SamMackenzie**, I'm sorry I kept you waiting so long! The story turned out to need more revisions than I'd expected, and RL kept me from doing them as quickly as I might hope. Hope you think the conclusion was worth waiting for. And thank you again for the compliments about my writing style and my characterizations.


End file.
